Interesting

2009 H1N1

noreply@blogger.com (DelMar) — Fri, 01 May 2009 21:13:08 PDT

GENEVA, Switzerland (CNN) -- The number of confirmed swine flu cases across the globe kept rising Friday, but some signs of hope emerged in the battle against the worldwide outbreak.

The World Health Organization said Friday that the number of confirmed cases stood at 367 worldwide, including 141 in the United States and 156 in Mexico. Thirteen countries have confirmed cases, the organization said.

Meanwhile, researchers worked to develop a vaccine for swine flu, which is also known as 2009 H1N1.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hopes to have a vaccine to manufacturers within a month, said Michael Shaw, lab team leader for the H1N1 response at the CDC.

"We're doing the best we can as fast as we can," he said.

Yet it would take four to six months from the time the appropriate strain is identified before the first doses become available, said Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny, WHO director of the Initiative for Vaccine Research.

"Of course we would like to have a vaccine tomorrow. We would have wanted to have it yesterday," she said. "It's a long journey."

She said there is "no doubt" that a vaccine can be made "in a relatively short period of time."

The steps involved in producing a vaccine involve isolating a strain of the virus, which has already been done, and tweaking it so manufacturers can make a vaccine, Kieny said.

The tweaked virus will be shipped to manufacturers, who will fine-tune it. Then come more tests before national regulatory agencies decide whether to approve a vaccine.

As researchers work, at least one politician at the epicenter of the outbreak expressed optimism Friday.

Authorities in Mexico are "beginning to see evidence that the [virus] might be letting up, and the number of people who have been hospitalized has leveled out in regards to people who are contagious, at least as of yesterday," Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard told reporters.

"We do have a problem, but I say this so that we know where we are as a city after we have done all we have done, and in what direction we are heading and how much we have progressed. And what I can say is that we are heading in the right direction."

The WHO said Mexico has 156 confirmed cases and nine deaths. Mexican authorities say they have confirmed 16 deaths and at least 358 cases, and they suspect more than 150 deaths may have been caused by the flu.
The CDC gave the following state-by-state breakdown of the 141 confirmed H1N1 cases in the United States: Arizona, 4; California, 13; Colorado, 2; Delaware, 4; Illinois, 3; Indiana, 3; Kansas, 2; Kentucky, 1; Massachusetts, 2; Michigan, 2; Minnesota, 1; Nebraska, 1; Nevada, 1; New Jersey, 5; New York, 50; Ohio, 1; South Carolina, 16; Texas, 28; and Virginia, 2.
One death in the United States has been attributed to swine flu -- a toddler from Mexico whose family brought him to Texas for medical treatment.

In a Cabinet meeting, President Obama on Friday praised the "extraordinary" government response to the virus but emphasized that "we also need to prepare for the long term."

"Since we know that these kinds of threats can emerge at any moment, even if it turns out that the H1N1 is relatively mild on the front end, it could come back in a more virulent form during the actual flu season, and that's why we are investing in our public health infrastructure."

He said there are indications from Mexico that "relatively young, healthy people" have died rather than people whose immune systems are compromised, and "that's why we're taking it seriously."

"So I just want everybody to be clear that this is why this is a cause for concern, but not alarm. We are essentially ensuring that, in the worst-case scenario, we can manage this appropriately, government working with businesses and individuals, the private sector, and containing an outbreak, and that we can, ultimately, get through this."

In addition to the confirmed H1N1 cases in Mexico and the United States, Canada has 34; Spain has 13; United Kingdom has 8; New Zealand and Germany each have 4; Israel has 2; Austria, China, Denmark, Netherlands and Switzerland each have one, according to the WHO.

Hong Kong health officials said a patient who is being treated there arrived from Mexico on a China Eastern Airlines flight that stopped in Shanghai. Denmark did not provide further details.

An additional 230 cases are being investigated in the United Kingdom, and Spain has 84 suspected cases. Australia, which has had no confirmed cases, was investigating 114.

The effects in Mexico reflect the fear and concern across the globe, including in the United States, where schools and parents are taking precautions in academics, graduations and sports because of the flu.

For example, 22 students Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania who just returned from from a five-week trip to Mexico City will get their diplomas at a separate ceremony when they graduate Saturday. Texas school officials have postponed all interscholastic sports until at least May 11. And Alabama has stopped such competitions until at least Tuesday.

The U.S. Department of Education said Friday that 433 public and nonpublic schools in 17 states had been closed because of the flu outbreak. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan noted in a news conference that the number is less than 1 percent of the nation's approximate 100,000 schools.

Earlier Friday, United Flight 903 was diverted to Boston, Massachusetts, on Friday after a female passenger started complaining of "flu-like" symptoms on a Munich-to-Washington flight, Logan Airport spokesman Phil Orendella said.

CDC officials at a news conference Friday were asked to compare the strain with the deadly 1918 virus.

noreply@blogger.com (DelMar) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 01:11:53 PDT

HOLLYWOOD - Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban are "in heaven" following the birth of their daughter Sunday Rose, who they call their "precious little angel."

The new mom and her singer husband are overjoyed with their first child, who was born in Nashville last week.

And the actress couldn't stop gushing in an e-mail to her friend and New York Post columnist, Liz Smith--who published the correspondence on the newspaper's Web site.

Kidman writes: "We are in heaven. Can't stop staring at her in complete awe. Feeling incredibly blessed to have been given this precious little angel."

And she adds, "Can't wait for you to meet her!"

noreply@blogger.com (DelMar) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 00:56:45 PDT

HOLLYWOOD - Hollywood socialite Khloe Kardashian has served just 173 minutes behind bars after turning herself over to police to begin a 30-day jail term.

The reality TV star was processed into the Lynwood, California, jail for women on Friday morning, as expected.

The 24-year-old was sentenced to serve jail time for violating probation following a drunk-driving arrest.

She was arrested for a DUI in March 2007, and was sentenced to three years probation.

But she failed to complete her roadside cleanup duty and enroll in an alcohol education class, and a judge sent her to jail on July 3.

The Lynwood jail is the same facility where Paris Hilton served time in another alcohol-related driving case last year.

Kardashian was released due to overcrowding issues.
www.hollywood.com

Chinese immigrants caught at Texas border

noreply@blogger.com (DelMar) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 03:42:22 PDT

Local police are accustomed to dealing with illegal border crossings but were astounded by the video of 15 Chinese immigrants unfolding themselves from the back of a sport-utility vehicle near this small border ...

Report--Jessica Alba Gives Birth to Baby Girl

noreply@blogger.com (DelMar) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 03:38:43 PDT

HOLLYWOOD - Jessica Alba has reportedly welcomed a baby girl into the world, becoming a first-time parent with her husband Cash Warren.
The Hollywood couple is celebrating the birth of a baby girl, who was born on Sunday at Los Angeles' Cedars Sinai Medical Center, according to Us Weekly magazine.
The tot's name is unknown, as is the weight of the child.
The Sin City beauty married beau Cash Warren last month in a secret ceremony, failing to invite even close friends and family.
The pair met in 2005 on the set of blockbuster Fantastic Four.
Alba and Warren recently moved into a $4 million mansion in L.A. in preparation of their first child, and Alba recently admitted that it is set to be a busy year.
"It's a lot of stress to buy a house, have a baby and get married in six months," she recently told USA Weekend. "It's a lot of life-changing decisions. I'm really, really secure."
A representative for the couple was unavailable for comment as WENN went to press.

Stars Gather to Mourn Yves Saint Laurent

noreply@blogger.com (DelMar) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 09:36:20 PDT

HOLLYWOOD - A host of celebrities, designers and supermodels, including Claudia Schiffer and Catherine Deneuve, have gathered in France to attend the funeral of late style maestro Yves Saint Laurent.

The legendary fashion designer died on Sunday after battling a brain tumor--and his loss has been felt by stars from all over the entertainment industry.

Saint Laurent's funeral took place in Paris on Thursday at the city's Saint-Roch church--with Paris' shops closing for two hours to pay their respects to the design icon.

The 71-year-old's fellow designers Christian Lacroix, Jean Paul Gaultier, John Galliano, Sonia and Nathalie Rykiel, Kenzo Takada and Valentino all turned out to honor their late rival.

Deneuve--a close friend of Saint Laurent--read out a poem in homage to the man who created her outfits for cult 1967 movie Belle De Jour.

Saint Laurent will be cremated and his ashes scattered in a botanical garden in Marrakech, Morocco, close to a house he owned in the region.

Kelsey Grammer Released from Hospital

noreply@blogger.com (DelMar) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 09:35:30 PDT

HOLLYWOOD - Actor Kelsey Grammer has been released from the hospital after suffering a mild heart attack.

The 53-year-old fell ill while he was paddle-boarding in the sea near his home in Hawaii on Saturday. He was taken to a nearby hospital and then airlifted to another clinic in Honolulu.

According to his spokesman, the Frasier star is "resting comfortably at his Hawaiian residence" and "wishes to thank those who phoned, emailed, or wrote expressions of concern to him."

At Google, a search guru's dream comes true

noreply@blogger.com (DelMar) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 09:33:03 PDT

Q&A Search has become central to the functioning of the Internet, but Udi Manber isn't the kind of person who takes that for granted.

"I don't have to tell anybody around here that search is important. That's a very nice luxury to have," said Manber, the Google vice president in charge of search quality.

Udi Manber, Google VP, engineering

Search quality may seem like an unassuming element of Google's operations, but in fact it's at the core. Manber oversees the company's search algorithm--all the different inputs Google weighs to judge which Web sites to rank highest in search results.

Manber's work has been highly secret, partly because search is central to Google's competitive advantage and partly because Google doesn't want people gaming the system to get artificially prominent results. But the company has begun sharing a smidgen, including an opening blog post by Manber in May. I talked to him at Google headquarters recently.

How mature is search today on the Internet? Are we 5 percent of the way done with the problem? Ninety percent?
My best analogy is that a 15-year-old thinks he's very mature. A 19-year-old thinks he's extremely mature. Every few years you learn that you were not mature before. Search on the Web is about 15 years old, and obviously we were much more mature than we were 5 years ago and 10 years ago and 15 years ago. One way to put it is that it's science fiction every 5 years. What's possible today to me was science fiction 5, or definitely 10 years ago. What was (ordinary) 10 years ago was science fiction 15 years ago. The development is really pretty amazing. It surprised even me. I expect a certain level of progress, and we're actually surpassing it.

You were at the University of Arizona, then Yahoo and Amazon, then A9, then you moved to Google in 2006. Is there anything you've learned from looking at it from different perspectives, or have you been just tackling the same thing with different phone numbers on your business card?
It's the same problem, and I've looked at it from many different angles. It's bigger here, and it's better here. We have a team that's beyond any other team I've ever been with. We put more resources into it. I don't have to tell anybody around here that search is important, and that's a very nice luxury to have.

I remember the old days of AltaVista and HotBot and WebCrawler some of these other search engines--days when search was really very primitive.
I remember starting those things. They looked very sophisticated and mature at the time, which is my point about the 15-year-old.

It's clearly become a lot more usable. But even 10 years ago, everybody hadn't been trained to think the way we get information is we go to a search box and type something in. Now that seems abundantly obvious. What 10 years from now is going to look stunningly obvious as having a search box is today?
It was clear to some people. I don't want to brag too much, but it was clear to me. That's why I moved to search in the early 1990s, because everybody was talking about the information revolution. It was very clear that to have an information revolution, it's not enough to store the information and move it around, you have to find it. I know a lot of people at the time who were talking in those terms--that's going to be the revolution. The ability to find things among huge amounts of information is the key factor. So while nowadays it's completely obvious, even 6 or 7 years ago it was not obvious. I think the reason Google is so successful now is because it was obvious to (co-founders) Larry (Page) and Sergey (Brin) 10 years ago, they put in all the effort, and they're still doing it now.

Don't take that for granted. It was not that well understood, but it was understood by some people. When I started working on search when I was in academia and I said I'm working on search, they looked at me and said, "What do you mean you're working on search? Did you lose something?" In the early 1990s, even, very few people worked on search, because search was done by professionals in various limited domains. There was legal search, there was medical search, there was chemical search, and some limited news search. And it was done by a searcher--professional people. You tell them, "This is what I want to find," and they find it for you. I went to trade conferences with searchers. The idea that people will do the search themselves--that it'll democratize the whole thing and you don't have to go to a professional--that's the revolution.

I think that'll advance much more because you'll do more searches. There are a lot of things you don't search for now, because you don't expect Google will know or that the search engine will find out. We are finding that user expectations grow. The kind of searches people do now are more complicated than the kinds they were doing five years ago. People expect a lot more from us.

Ten years ago, if you actually found an answer to some specific question, it was, "Hey, look at this, it's so cool!" It was an event. Nowadays if you don't find exactly what you want in the first or second result, something is wrong. That's nice. The expectation is that we'll do it.

What do you understand that everybody else is missing five years from now--the sci-fi time frame?
I would say it's more of the same, but it's more in-depth, easier, and allowing you to control more of what you're looking for, giving you more input, finding more things. There will be lots of rocket-science things that will come along, but those I can't talk about.

One interesting trend is personalization. I like cameras, so if I do a year's worth of searching, Google understands I tend to like cameras, if I specifically enable it. How mature is that?
Yes. If you specifically give us permission and enable search history, then we'll store your search history and use it to improve your search later on. It's not something that will completely change your results. It's something that may take something from position five and move it to position three once in awhile, sometimes higher, sometimes lower. Even if you really care about cameras, many of yours searches are not about cameras. A lot of searches are about things where you don't know the answer. If you search about the history of the Renaissance and I tell you about somebody who took pictures of books about the Renaissance, it's not a good result, just because you like cameras. We have to know when to use it and when not to use it.

A related question: Everybody is into social networks these days. Is there some intermediate tier between the entire Internet searching and my personal searches, where you might have a search results input of me and my friends or me and my family?
I'm looking at it the same way I'm looking at personal search. It's one more signal we can use to improve your search. Just as if you've done the same search 15 times before, if you've done 100 searches on cameras, that tells us something. If a lot of your friends do a particular search, it's just one more signal. You have to figure out when to use it and not use it--for what kind of queries it's going to give you better results and when you ignore it.

Is that something you have under development? I don't think it's actually out there now.
It's not out there now, and we're not talking about (any future plans).

I wonder how deterministic Google is--how reproducible one search is from one day to the next. With this vast constellation of servers you have, do the changes propagate slowly across the system? If I do a search in Boston tomorrow, or with servers that are out of sync, will I get different results?
It does percolate through the system. It doesn't do it slowly. It does it very, very fast. But it's definitely the case that if you do the same search on a different cluster, you may get slightly different results at a given time. It's also the case that if you do the same search on different days you may get different results, because some of the results are things we indexed five minutes ago.

We are really, really fast. If something new happens in the world and you search for it, I'm not going to give you an exact time, but within an hour you will see in the direct results pages that relate to that story. Freshness is extremely important to us.

The other difference is it depends on location. If you do the same search from a different country, you get different results, even if it's the same language. We will tune the results by the country in which you're searching. It's by language and location.

How is universal search working? To what extent do people use it?
What we really want is for you to go to one place, Google.com, search for whatever you want, and we'll try to figure out whether you wanted a video, a book, local information. Based on the query, we will insert different media types into the main search results. You don't have to remember to go to images.google.com when you're looking for images. The idea is you don't have to think about it.

How hard is it to keep the porn out? With two large classes of things people don't want--spam and porn--a lot of energy goes into blocking it or into getting around whoever is blocking it.
We put quite a bit of energy into it. There is a whole team dedicated to removing porn, not just in the U.S., but internationally. I think we're doing a pretty good job. It can't be 100 percent, but it's a very small number. Whenever we evaluate anything, that's one of the things. Does it introduce more porn or less porn?

Is that as active a cat-and-mouse game as spam?
Not really. My impression is that most porn sites do not try to trick you. Spam is the idea of tricking you--showing you one thing when you're looking for something else. I think most porn sites have enough clientele that they don't need to do that. They pretty much identify themselves.

I'm curious about what I think of as the return of the command-line interface: Google's onebox idea. How do you see that as different from conducting a regular search? Are people going to be trained to type in specific commands to get the result they want, like "time London"? That's in the gray area between a search term and an actual command. Or do you want it to work just when people type in what they want?
We don't want to force people to learn syntax or any special thing. We want to be able to understand what they mean without them having to learn. That doesn't mean we won't allow people to type in special commands to get something special. We want to put advanced tools in there without requiring everybody to use them. "Time London" is a good example--that's what you would think if you're looking for what is now the time in London. You can also say "what is the time now in London." The idea is you're in charge, we should figure out what you want and get you that answer.

There's a solid business already with vertical search--chemical, medical, health, legal. Are you looking at some sort of search subset for specific areas?
Our approach is universal search. We want to get everything into Google search. Having said that, there are specific searches--the kind of operations you want to do in the results. For example when you do local search, geography matters, where it is on the map matters, and you want to see the results on a map. Or when you do product search, price matters. If you have cases of searches where some things matter more and you want to allow people to operate on those or navigate those parameters, then we'll give you more tools to do that. But you shouldn't have to navigate to a specific site to do that.

With video and photo, are we going to get to a point where the computer can know the content without convenient text labels?
I think we can do better at it. The typical question people pose--"Can you tell that's a tree?"--I think that's the wrong question. We can tell that's a tree with the text. We'll get you good pictures of trees. The problem is you want to look at the Hearst Building with the sign from the right angle with the sun up above. That's the kind of question that's very hard to tell, because the image doesn't say it's the Hearst Building and whether the sun is shining. You're getting into a lot of depth there. That's going to require some combination of some image processing and some information about it. The metadata around the image is going to get more important.

Can user-generated content give you an entree into that, where you have somebody who does say specifically this is the Hearst Building? So you mine Flickr and Picasa Web albums.
We have that now. And we can say I want pictures that are high quality. Or just line drawings. We can tell that, and move to more signals and more features.

For a lot of searches, I get Wikipedia entries. Do you think that's good or bad? Wikipedia has a huge number of internal links to itself; I don't know if that increases its rank in the search results.
I look at it in terms of whether people find what they're looking for. If they find what they're looking for, it's good.

Madonna to Headline Michael Moore Film Festival

noreply@blogger.com (DelMar) — Sat, 24 May 2008 22:38:11 PDT

HOLLYWOOD - Documentary maker Michael Moore has landed a big boost for his Traverse City Film Festival in Michigan--Madonna's coming home for it.
The pop superstar's I Am Because We Are documentary, about AIDS orphans in Malawi, will headline the alternative film festival in August.
And the Material Girl will be there in person.
A thrilled Moore says, "Madonna will present the film, watch it with the audience and conduct a question-and-answer session afterwards.
"It's a huge coup for the Film Festival, and for Traverse City."
And the hard-hitting documentarian, who has taken healthcare and President George W. Bush to task in his films, has nothing but praise for Madonna's new release, which recently premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in France.
He adds, "She spent the past couple of years filming what the people go through and the efforts to help them. I saw the film about a month ago. It's a fantastic, powerful movie."
Madonna produced and narrated the documentary after travelling to Malawi, where she met toddler David Banda. She and husband Guy Ritchie are adopting the child.

Baby offered on eBay now in state custody

noreply@blogger.com (DelMar) — Sat, 24 May 2008 22:33:50 PDT

Anyone who trolls eBay with regularity has probably gotten used to seeing the odd object up for sale now and again. But the Saturday story of a German pair offering their 8-month-old for purchase on the site may end up topping more than a few creepiest-ever-on-eBay lists.

A police spokesperson in the Bavarian town of Krumbach said law enforcement is investigating the couple for possible child trafficking, even though the 23-year-old woman of the duo insists the post was a joke. Authorities, not appreciating the parents' apparently twisted sense of humor, have also put the unnamed baby into state custody.

According to Reuters, a number of people contacted German authorities after spotting the offer on eBay. "Baby--collection only," the post read. "Offering my nearly new baby for sale because it cries too much. Male, 70 cm long and can be used either in a baby carrier or a stroller." Not that the price matters one way or the other, but the parents offered to sell the child for one euro ($1.57).

No one bid on the baby in the two or so hours the post was up, police said. eBay has since taken the listing down.

Housing bailout bill creates national fingerprint registry

noreply@blogger.com (DelMar) — Sat, 24 May 2008 01:24:23 PDT

The Senate housing bill approved by a committee this week was already drawing fire from fiscal conservatives and financially responsible homeowners opposed to bailing out housing speculators.Now it may be time to add privacy advocates to the chorus of voices urging President Bush to veto the bill, which could put taxpayers on the hook for billions of bailout dollars in new taxes or deficit spending.Buried in the text of the revised legislation, approved by the Senate Banking Committee by a 19-2 vote this week, is a plan to create a new national fingerprint registry. It covers just about everyone involved in the mortgage business, including lenders, "loan originators," and some real estate agents.

"We know that today the rules governing mortgage brokers and lenders are inadequate," Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said in a statement. "There is just a thin patchwork of regulation that varies from state to state. This legislation will create basic minimum standards for states to utilize to protect consumers." Feinstein and Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) wrote a separate bill introduced in February that has been glued onto the revised Senate housing legislation.
What's a little odd is the lack of public discussion about this new fingerprint database. No mention of it appears in the official summary of the revised Senate bill. No fingerprint database requirement is in the House version of the legislation approved earlier this month. No copy of the revised Senate legislation is posted on the Library of Congress' Thomas Web site, which would be the usual procedure.
The feds' new fingerprint database would function like this: Any "loan originator" must furnish "fingerprints for submission to the Federal Bureau of Investigation" and a wealth of other unnamed government agencies. Loan originator is defined as someone who accepts a residential mortgage application, negotiates terms on a mortgage, advises on loan terms, prepares loan packages, or collects information on behalf of the consumer. Real estate agents are covered if they get "compensation" of any sort (including kickbacks) from loan originators.
It's true that some states already have fingerprinting requirements. Colorado requires "mortgage brokers" (a narrower category) to get fingerprinted. So do Kansas, Mississippi, and Montana, for instance.
In the proposed federal system, what remains unclear is what happens to the fingerprints once submitted. The legislation talks about a "background check"--which would imply a one-time use--but also creates a Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System and Registry that "provides increased accountability and tracking of loan originators." Neither Feinstein's nor Martinez's offices returned our phone calls and e-mail messages asking for clarification on Friday morning.
The bill does specify that the registry will be run by the Conference of State Bank Supervisors and the American Association of Residential Mortgage Regulators. Those two groups are currently developing a "central repository" of information with document collecting and fingerprinting that "will be accessed through a secure Web site over the Internet."
"I imagine that, yes, a fingerprint registry might stop an ex-con from handling loans, but I doubt it will make even a dent in the lending problems the bill aims to stop," says John Berlau, director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute. "And I would venture to guess that the vast majority of the problem mortgages were handled by employees with no criminal record. Rather, this seem like another thoughtless idea that lets politicians brag that they are 'getting tough' about a particular problem."
Berlau makes a good point. Creating a database of fingerprints of "loan originators" and a subset of real estate agents might make sense. It might not. But it surely would have been reasonable to have an informed debate on the topic before politicians rushed to enact federal legislation before the Senate's Memorial Day recess, and it would surely be wise to insist on security and privacy protections when the bill goes to the full Senate. Unfortunately, there's little reason to believe either will actually happen.

news.cnet.com

Natural cataclysms

noreply@blogger.com (DelMar) — Mon, 19 May 2008 20:16:00 PDT

New Prodigy HIT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

noreply@blogger.com (DelMar) — Mon, 19 May 2008 11:27:42 PDT

New Prodigy HIT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
click please

China pauses to mourn

noreply@blogger.com (DelMar) — Mon, 19 May 2008 01:27:11 PDT

CHINA PHOTOS / GETTY IMAGES

Survivors search for belongings Sunday among ruins at the Hongbai township in Sichuan province. The May 12 earthquake was China's worst in decades.

BEICHUAN, China — Flags flew at half-staff, public entertainment was canceled and 1.3 billion people were asked to observe three minutes of silence as China began three days of mourning today for the victims of the nation's massive earthquake.Officials asked for the horns of cars, trains and ships and air-raid sirens to sound as people fell silent at 2:28 p.m. — exactly one week after the quake splintered thousands of buildings and killed an estimated 50,000 people. Chinese news portal sina.com said the government had ordered all visitors to online entertainment and game pages to be redirected to Web sites dedicated to commemorating earthquake victims.The Olympic torch relay — a potent symbol of national pride in the countdown to August's much-anticipated Beijing Games — was also suspended during the mourning period.Hope of finding more trapped survivors dwindled, and preventing hunger and disease among the homeless became more pressing."It will soon be too late" to find trapped survivors, said Koji Fujiya, deputy leader of a Japanese rescue team working in Beichuan, a town reduced to rubble. His team pulled 10 bodies out of Beichuan's high school Sunday.The steady run of rescue news flashed by the official Xinhua news agency has slowed. Just three rescues were reported Sunday, including a woman in Yingxiu town who was reached by soldiers who dug a 15-foot tunnel through the wreckage of a flattened power station and had to amputate both her legs to set her free, after 150 hours."She was in a delirious state" and told rescuers to leave her alone, thinking she was already in a hospital, Xinhua quoted rescuer Ma Gang as saying. "We fed her milk and water, and her family was there to reassure her."A week after the 7.9-magnitude earthquake struck China's western provinces, doctors were confronting a horrible reality among the ruins: Many of those who survived the quake are facing conditions that still threaten their lives.Deep infections and rotted limbs are just part of the problem. The World Health Organization (WHO) is warning that China must ramp up efforts to ensure safe drinking water, adequate food and proper sanitation at camps where tens of thousands of homeless survivors fleeing from the mountains have taken refuge.China says no disease outbreak has yet emerged from the quake zone, where 36,000 doctors, nurses and other medical personnel treat 122,252 people admitted to hospitals. Relief workers in towns leveled by the quake, wary of disease, sprayed disinfectant on rubble, and the Health Ministry voiced concern that cholera may emerge.Conditions for such outbreaks remain ripe, and the danger in the area of the quake persists. Dozens of aftershocks have rumbled through the region, extending the damage and fear of survivors. A magnitude-6 temblor on Sunday killed three people, injured more than 1,000 and caused further damage to houses and roads, Xinhua reported.With more bodies discovered, the confirmed death toll rose to 32,476, the State Council, China's Cabinet, reported. The injured numbered more than 220,000. Many bodies lay by roadsides in body bags or wrapped in plastic sheeting as authorities struggled to deal with the sheer number of corpses by digging burial pits and working crematoriums overtime.Dozens of students were buried in new graves dotting a green hillside overlooking quake rubble, the small mounds of dirt failing to block the pungent smell of decay wafting from the ground. Most graves were unmarked, though several had wooden markers with names scribbled on them."The main needs now are water, sanitation and food. Ensuring supply of food and safe drinking water and trying to restore good sanitation are critical because these are the basic transmission routes for communicable diseases," said Dr. Hans Troedsson, the WHO chief in China.More than 15 million houses collapsed in Sichuan, Gansu, Shaanxi, Chongqing, Yunnan and Hubei provinces, and 5.7 million people were evacuated, a WHO statement said.In one bit of good news, the threat of flooding in several areas appeared to lessen Sunday after three rivers clogged by landslides flowed over the blockages without complication, according to Xinhua.On Saturday, thousands of people, survivors and rescue workers alike, fled Beichuan and other towns. By Sunday, the workers had resumed their search in Beichuan, although the streets were mostly empty.Fears of flooding remained elsewhere. Officials warned that heavy rain forecast for early this week could weaken some of the 391 reservoirs that dot the region and threaten thousands of people downstream. Also at flooding risk, authorities said, were areas adjoining 21 rivers blocked by massive landslides.

CHINA PHOTOS / GETTY IMAGES

A child whose legs were amputated because of injuries in the May 12 earthquake undergoes treatment Sunday at the People's Hospital at Chengdu in Sichuan province.

Responding to concerns about nuclear sites in the quake zone, a Chinese military spokesman, air-force Maj. Gen. Ma Jian, said Sunday that all nuclear facilities jolted by the quake were confirmed safe.Though Ma did not elaborate, China has a research reactor, two nuclear-fuel production sites and two atomic-weapons sites within 90 miles of the quake's epicenter, according to the French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety.Also in the quake area, three giant pandas were missing from the Wolong Nature Reserve for the endangered animals. Five staff members were killed in the quake, forestry spokesman Cao Qingyao told Xinhua. The 60 other giant pandas at the reserve were safe.President Hu Jintao continued to tour the destruction for a third day Sunday. He expressed gratitude for the arrival of international aid and noted that "relief is still a grim struggle, the task is arduous and time is pressing."Two U.S. military C-17 aircraft landed in Chengdu, the Sichuan capital, carrying 15,000 meals, tents, blankets, lanterns, generators and hand tools. The planes came from Hawaii and the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam. Xinhua said the supplies were worth $1.6 million and marked the first donation by a foreign military.

10 soldiers and 40 rebels killed in north-western Sri Lanka

noreply@blogger.com (DelMar) — Mon, 19 May 2008 01:17:24 PDT

Colombo - Ten soldiers and 40 Tamil rebels were killed and three more soldiers were reported missing during weekend clashes between the two sides in north-western Sri Lanka, the defence ministry said Monday.

The deaths were reported in three separate incidents in the Mannar area, 320 kilometres north of the capital, where government troops are trying to push forward into rebel controlled areas.

Five of the soldiers were killed in the Nadunkandal where the Tamil rebels made an attempt to capture the forward defence lines of the army and lost 21 of their cadres, military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said.

Twelve rebels and three soldiers were also injured in the incident in the fighting that lasted more than one hour.

Four soldiers and eight rebels were killed in a separate clash in the Karukkandal area on Sunday morning. Three soldiers were reported missing after the clash.

Rebels also had launched a mortar attack, killing one soldier, and troops retaliated killing 11 rebels.

Fighting in the north has claimed over 4,000 lives during the past four months, according to the military.

Study blasts fears over global warming

noreply@blogger.com (DelMar) — Mon, 19 May 2008 01:04:10 PDT

Although some experts warn that global warming may be dramatically increasing the number and intensity of hurricanes, a new climate study begs to differ.It proclaims that by 2080, hurricanes will be only slightly more powerful. It further projects that hurricanes will produce heavier rainfall, but there will be fewer hurricanes overall.The study, conducted by a team of federal scientists and released Sunday, found that hurricane intensity will increase by about 2 percent for every 1 degree increase in Atlantic sea-surface temperatures. The scientists expect the ocean to warm slightly over the next several decades."These changes in intensity are fairly modest in size," said Tom Knutson, the study's lead author and a research meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Knutson said the study concludes that greenhouse gases — the purported force behind global warming — will have little influence on overall tropical activity.

The study was published online in Nature Geoscience, a respected scientific journal. It conflicts with other research, such as a study by Kerry Emanuel, who asserts global warming will dramatically boost the strength of hurricanes by the end of the century.
Emanuel, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found that the energy in the average hurricane already has increased by about 70 percent in the past 30 years.
In the latest study, the authors, all based at NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, N.J., said they found global warming actually might act to reduce the number of hurricanes. Earlier NOAA papers already have suggested that possibility.
That is because scientists think increased heat will create more wind shear, which acts to inhibit storm formation.
"It destabilizes the atmosphere over the Atlantic," said Isaac Held, one of the authors of the latest study.
The study employed a high-resolution computer model that drew on 20 years of Atlantic activity to project what will happen in the last 20 years of this century. Its findings don't reflect what might happen in other ocean basins, Knutson said.
www.sun-sentinel.com

Mars is getting a new visitor

noreply@blogger.com (DelMar) — Sun, 18 May 2008 00:12:14 PDT

On the morning of May 25, Mars will receive a new alien contraption from Earth, the Phoenix Mars Lander. Its three month mission is to sample buried soil and ice--and maybe find signs of life--in the North Polar region of the Red Planet.

Unlike the last landing when the Mars rovers were covered with air bags and bounced to a stop, the Phoenix will land on its three legs. It is expected to enter the Martian atmosphere at 13,000 mph and will hopefully slow down to 5 mph when it reaches the surface and lands, seven minutes later.

"This is not a trip to grandma's house. Putting a spacecraft safely on Mars is hard and risky," said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Calech/University of Arizona

Ellen DeGeneres Hints at Marriage Plans

noreply@blogger.com (DelMar) — Fri, 16 May 2008 21:17:35 PDT

HOLLYWOOD - Talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres has hinted that she will wed longtime love Portia De Rossi after California's gay marriage laws were relaxed on Thursday.
The state lifted a ban on gay marriage at California Supreme Court--and DeGeneres hinted she could be one of the first up the aisle.
She says, "I'm thrilled that the California Supreme Court overturned the ban on gay marriage. I can't wait to get married. We all deserve the same rights, and I believe that someday we'll look back on this and not allowing gays to marry will seem as absurd as not allowing women to vote."
Meanwhile, sources on the set of The Ellen DeGeneres Show claim the star announced her plans to marry during filming. According to TMZ.com, Madonna recorded a message for the couple.

www.hollywood.com/news

Jet-powered wing propels solo flight

noreply@blogger.com (DelMar) — Fri, 16 May 2008 21:20:12 PDT

photos Aerial adventurer Yves Rossy flies over the Alps for five minutes with nothing more than the jet-equipped wing strapped to his back

Bin Laden urges Muslims to liberate Palestine

noreply@blogger.com (DelMar) — Fri, 16 May 2008 08:46:52 PDT

(CNN) -- Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden -- in a blunt new message that coincides with Israel's 60th anniversary -- urged his followers to liberate Palestine, a terrorism analyst told CNN on Friday.

This image accompanied a message from Osama bin Laden in November.

In a message titled "The Causes of Conflict on the 60th Anniversary of the State of Israeli Occupation," bin Laden reiterated jihadist opposition to the existence of the Jewish state and its policies.

Bin Laden's audio message, released Thursday, told listeners that "liberating" Palestine should be the aim of every Muslim, according to terrorism analyst Laura Mansfield.

The message, played over a still image on jihadist Web sites, runs 9 minutes and 40 seconds. CNN cannot independently verify the authenticity of the message.

Bin Laden decries characterization of Palestinian militant groups as terror organizations. He also says Israel has engaged in terror.

"As your low values show double standards in one issue, you call the Palestinian organizations terror organizations. They were punished and ignored.

"On the other hand, the Israelis were killing civilians from women and children, either through car bombs as in Haifa and elsewhere. Or what is worse than that, when the Zionist organizations massacred Palestinian villagers by scaring him, deporting them, and robbing their lands, what was your stance?"

He singles out Menachem Begin, the late Israeli prime minister, and blames him for the events at Deir Yassin, a Palestinian Arab village where the killings of civilians occurred in 1948.

"What was the Westerner's stance on this? Instead of being punished for those crimes, he was appointed prime minister. That wasn't enough for them; they presented him with the Nobel Peace Prize," he said.

Today, bin Laden says, "we are living the massacre of Gaza," the Palestinian-controlled territory. Israeli troops and Palestinian militants from Gaza have been fighting and Israeli security moves have had severe humanitarian consequences.

"It is happening in front of the eyes of the world. One and a half million individuals under the deadly bombing are dying slowly because of poor nutrition and scarcity of medicine," bin Laden said. "But your politicians require Egypt's ruler to provision the embargo on them to choke the weak and most of them are women and children."

Bin Laden emphasizes the fighting will continue against "the Israelis and their allies, to obtain justice, to be fair to the ones mistreated."

"We will not abandon one inch of Palestine, God willing, if there is one honest Muslim man left in this world," bin Laden said.

Bin Laden's last message came on March 20, when in an audiotape he called Iraq "the perfect base to set up the jihad to liberate Palestine."

In an audiotape released the previous day, bin Laden condemned European countries for siding with the United States in Afghanistan and for allowing the publication of cartoons considered insulting to Islam's prophet Mohammed.

Al Qaeda -- which is responsible for the September 11, 2001, attack on the United States -- regularly condemns Zionism, the philosophical underpinning of Israel. President Bush referred to al Qaeda on Friday in an address to Israel's parliament, the Knesset, in Jerusalem.

He decried the actions and the motivations of terrorists and noted that bin Laden teaches that "the killing of Jews and Americans is one of the biggest duties."

Google Translate speaks 10 new languages

noreply@blogger.com (DelMar) — Thu, 15 May 2008 20:24:16 PDT

Google Translate just got more useful for a Prague citizen visiting India.

The online translation function now can understand 10 more languages: Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Hindi, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, and Swedish. That brings the total to 23 languages, Google said in a blog posting Thursday.

In addition, Google added a language-detection feature that can guess the source language a user is trying to translate. It's more effective with longer amounts of text, Google said.

Detect Language means you only have to click the language you want to translate text into.

Shania Twain Splits from Music Producer Husband

noreply@blogger.com (DelMar) — Thu, 15 May 2008 22:55:40 PDT

HOLLYWOOD - Country star Shania Twain and her music producer husband Robert 'Mutt' Lange have filed for divorce.
The Canadian singer, 42, and music mogul Lange, 59, married in 1993 and share one child together. In a statement, their spokesperson, Jason Owen, says, "This is a private matter and there will be no further comment at this time."

Calif. Supreme Court overturns gay-marriage ban

noreply@blogger.com (DelMar) — Thu, 15 May 2008 20:19:02 PDT

The California Supreme Court ruled today that same-sex couples should be permitted to marry, rejecting state marriage laws as discriminatory.
The state high court's ruling was unlikely to end the debate over gay matrimony in California. A group has circulated petitions for a November ballot initiative that would amend the state Constitution to block same-sex marriage, and the Legislature has twice passed bills to authorize gay marriage. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed both.

Democrats slam governor's lottery plan

noreply@blogger.com (DelMar) — Thu, 15 May 2008 04:36:26 PDT

SACRAMENTO – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to use money from an expanded lottery to plug a big state budget hole is not looking like a winning ticket.

Even though the governor's revised budget avoids deep school cuts, it was all but pronounced dead on arrival yesterday by legislators from both parties.

Republicans objected to the governor's plan because it would trigger a temporary 1 cent increase in the state sales tax if voters reject the lottery proposal.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who unveiled his revised state budget proposal yesterday in Sacramento, is hoping his lottery bond plan will help erase the state's massive shortfall. But lawmakers from both parties objected to the proposal.

Democrats said that the lottery plan was speculative and risky, and that the budget would make deep cuts in health care, social services and public transit.

Regarding the sales-tax provision, Senate Minority Leader Dave Cogdill, R-Modesto, said, “I can't imagine that a Republican in either house would vote for this.”

The governor's proposal would require voters in November to approve a plan for increased lottery marketing and payoffs that would raise $15 billion, much of which would create a budget reserve.

“This is just flawed from the beginning to the end,” said Senate President Pro Tempore Don Perata, D-Oakland. “Getting it to the ballot would be hard enough. Passing it, I think, would be mission impossible.”

The governor earlier floated the idea of leasing or selling the lottery. When he unveiled his revised budget yesterday, he called the lottery financing a creative way to close a shortfall without raising taxes.

Schwarzenegger said a widening deficit caused him to modify the budget he proposed in January, which was based on a 10 percent reduction in funding needed to keep pace with growth and inflation.

A budget gap estimated at $14.5 billion in January, cut in half by borrowing and other action in February, has ballooned to $15.2 billion – or $17.2 billion if a $2 billion reserve is included.

The main cause of the bigger shortfall is that a sagging economy has lowered tax revenue estimates by $6 billion.

The governor, arguing for a reserve fund, said revenue increased at an average of 5 percent a year during the past decade, but came in big spurts – a 24 percent increase one year, 14 percent in another.

He said a reserve would force the state to set aside some revenue in good years, and help avoid deep spending cuts when revenue drops in lean years.

“No other big state has seen such volatile ups and downs in revenues,” Schwarzenegger said.

The governor said he wanted to join Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, who took office Tuesday, in appointing a commission to recommend ways to modernize the state's tax structure and stabilize revenue.

His budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 assumes that voters in November will approve his lottery plan, providing $5 billion to help cover the budget shortfall and $10 billion to create a reserve.

The governor said the lottery underperforms lotteries in other states. Per capita lottery sales in 2006 averaged $189 in other states, $225 in the 10 largest states, but only $88 in California.

The governor said a financial consultant told him that improving the marketing of lottery games can produce enough revenue to pay off $15 billion in bonds, even if it takes 10 years to reach the national average.

Schools would continue to get their share of lottery revenue, now about $1.2 billion. Meanwhile, the lottery improvements would generate additional revenue to pay off the bonds.

The lender that gives the state $15 billion would have a strong guarantee, said Mike Genest, the governor's finance director.

If the new revenue falls short, the school lottery share would be used to make the bond payments. The loss for schools would be replaced by money from the general fund.

“There really is almost no risk,” he said.

Senate leader Perata has said that opposition from wealthy Indian gaming tribes could sink a lottery ballot measure. Schwarzenegger said he thinks the tribes are only concerned about “opening up the door” for electronic gambling devices.

“I think this is the concern that they have,” Schwarzenegger said. “But we have no intentions to really compete with them.”

A spokeswoman for a tribal gaming group said the lottery changes would have to be carefully planned to avoid breaching the “exclusivity” guarantees in compacts the tribes signed with the state.

“We are pleased that the state would continue to own the lottery,” said Alison Harvey, executive director of the California Tribal Business Alliance.

Assembly Minority Leader Mike Villines, R-Clovis, said he thinks lawmakers should look at leasing the lottery, which would not require a vote by legislators to approve the backup sales-tax increase.

“We don't need to borrow money,” Villines said. “This is an asset that we can lease out and have a cash flow come in. That's a much better way to do it.”

Genest said a long-term lease would be more costly for the state because a private operator would take over the operation of the lottery, assuming the risk if sales do not improve.

Other states have either leased their lottery or sold bonds backed by lottery sales, said Dave Hitchcock of Standard & Poor's, a Wall Street credit-rating firm.

“Either way, it will raise money for you,” he said.

The governor's January budget proposal caused school districts to give about 14,000 teachers “pink slip” notices of potential layoffs and required legislators to vote for a $4 billion reduction in Proposition 98 school-funding guarantee.

His plan would give schools a bit more money than they are receiving this year, enough to raise total funding from all sources to $12,000 per student, up from $11,997 this year. Proposition 98 would not have to be suspended.

“We are still looking at budget cuts and layoffs next year,” said Rick Pratt of the California School Boards Association. He said the governor's plan is about $2.8 billion short of fully covering growth and inflation.

The budget requires deep reductions in health and social services programs that the governor said are “going to be very painful.”

Anthony Wright of Health Access California said the biggest of the reductions would save $343 million by no longer allowing parents who have one child and an annual income of $11,000 or more to be eligible for Medi-Cal, the state-federal health care program for the needy.

“The governor's budget cuts will result in closing the doors to coverage and care for hundreds of thousands of Californians, and further unravel the broken health care system we all rely on,” Wright said in a statement.

Schwarzenegger's plan calls for a 5 percent cut in grants to people in the CalWORKS welfare program, lowering the monthly payment of $723 in high-cost counties such as San Diego to $687. In-home services also would be cut.

The plan would shift $1.4 billion from transportation funds to help balance the general fund, said the California Transit Association, pushing the total raid from transportation funds during this decade to more than $4 billion.

The proposal also drops controversial proposals to release 22,000 low-risk prison inmates early, close 48 state parks and reduce lifeguards at 16 state beaches. He proposes increasing fees $1 to $2 at some of the more popular state parks.

His proposal to increase emergency fire services with a fee on property insurance was adjusted for risk.

In high-risk areas, the fee would be 1.4 percent of the insurance cost, an average of $12.60 per household. The fee in low-risk areas would be 0.75 percent of the insurance cost, an average of $6.75 per household.

China sends more copters to quake-hit area

noreply@blogger.com (DelMar) — Wed, 14 May 2008 21:23:15 PDT

(CNN) -- Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Thursday ordered 90 more helicopters for rescue missions in Sichuan province, adding urgency to the massive relief operations under way since Monday's devastating earthquake in southwest China.

Rescuers carry the injured from the quake-stricken town of Yingxiu Wednesday in Sichuan province.As mudslides, debris and fallen rocks blocked rescuers and aid workers from China's quake-hit areas, Wen ordered 90 more helicopters to the region, Xinhua reported.
Since the 7.9-magnitude quake struck Monday, China has dispatched 20 choppers for dropping food and water, transporting the injured and delivering rescuers, Xinhua reported. Thursday's order brings the total to 110.
Rescuers continued their attempts to save those trapped beneath the rubble at schools, businesses and homes.
Aftershocks at times forced rescuers to turn away from the fallen buildings, leaving crowds frustrated without knowing the fate of loved ones. Video from one disaster scene shows a woman clinging to a crane after rescuers suspended a mission at a crumbled building, deeming the site to dangerous to enter.
But there were scattered stories of survival. A 3-year-old girl was rescued from beneath a toppled building in Sichuan's Beichuan County on Thursday, Xinhua said. Photos of the rescue showed the girl sustained a leg injury, but was otherwise alert.
A frightened seventh-grade girl was pulled safely from the rubble of a school dormitory Wednesday evening -- 50 hours after she was buried by Monday's earthquake, state-run media said.
In a weak voice, the trapped girl called out to one of the rescuers, "uncle, save me, save me," he said. "If anything (bad) had happened to her, the voice could haunt me for the rest of my life."
More than 4.3 million homes collapsed or sustained damage, according to the Chinese Embassy in Washington, and the official death toll from the quake had reached 14,866 by Wednesday evening. But casualty figures from various cities indicate a higher number of dead.
The state-run Xinhua news agency has provided death tolls for eight communities in Sichuan province that add up to nearly 20,000, including roughly 7,700 who perished in the town of Yingxiu, near the earthquake's epicenter. CNN cannot independently confirm the tallies.
The girl rescued at Muyu Middle School in Sichuan province was among 89 children pulled from the rubble alive. At least 201 students were killed when the building collapsed while many were napping, according to China.org. More than 100 children escaped from the school in Qingchuan County, and rescuers were searching for an unspecified number still believed to be trapped.
Wang Guangfen, a nurse, climbed under a cement slab to give the girl, He Cuiqing, medicine, while other rescuers carefully moved slabs until they could remove the girl.
"She appeared very fragile, and there were blood stains on her chest," said China.org, quoting Wang. "But she was still conscious, and called me aunt when I reached her."
Elsewhere in the stricken region, videotape showed a 3-year-old pulled out alive after more than 40 hours in rubble, and a pregnant woman safely rescued, as a small crowd cheered.
In other developments:

Video showed soldiers and relief teams swarmed over mountainsides and piles of debris in and near the epicenter of the quake in Sichuan province, looking for signs of life. Helicopters were flying overhead, some of them dropping food and other supplies.

Hours after 2,000 troops were dispatched to the Zipingpu dam upstream from the earthquake-hit Dujiangyan City, a probe revealed that the dam is stable and safe, Xinhua reported. It was not immediately clear what type of investigation was conducted. State-run media said earlier that the dam on Zipingpu Reservoir had "severe cracks."

Twelve American eco-tourists who were thought to be missing Monday after the quake were able to contact their loved ones by cell phone to let them know they are alive, said an official with World Wildlife Fund, which sponsored the tour. But two Chinese WWF volunteers remain missing.

Fifteen British nationals have been reported missing near the panda preserve. "We have no reports so far of any casualties to British citizens, but we do remain very concerned about reports of some UK citizens being in the affected area," said William Ehrman, British ambassador to China. "We are doing everything that we can to locate them."

More than 30,000 people are "missing or out of reach" in Shifang, Xinhua reported. Citing local government, Xinhua said that the death toll in the city exceeded 2,500. Two chemical plants collapsed, trapping hundreds of people, Xinhua reported Monday. More than 80 tons of of ammonia leaked out, it said. A local official said there were no deaths. The news agency's Wednesday report made no mention of the people it had said were trapped in the chemical plants.

Mianyang has become a massive refugee camp for survivors, Xinhua reported. Thousands of people uprooted around the region are taking shelter downtown at the city's main sports gym and other facilities. Reports say 7,395 people have died and 18,645 are trapped in debris in the city. Among those trapped were about 1,000 students at a middle school.

/asia